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“In the entire world there are only a few sounds that bring joy to all but the most jaded. One is the murmur of a kitten purring. Another is the thwack of a well-pitched baseball hitting a perfectly swung bat. And the third is the pop of a cork being pulled from a bottle of wine.” —George Taber

bhodilee

I have started this four times. I need to drink more to properly lubricate the free flowing nonsense that I am known for. (that and ending sentences with prepositions) I can’t drink though because I have to go in front of my board tomorrow and tell 3 of them they’re out of a job at the next election cycle. Whatever, so here I sit, sober and sad. Sad because there’s half a bottle of wine left that I can’t drink. It only clocks in at 12.4% so I could drink the whole thing and start a bottle of something else, but I won’t.

Things that instantly draw me to the winery before I even taste it. The Yelp reviews paint it as this wonderfully beautiful place with great wines and extremely cool people. Can’t go wrong there. Also, this wine comes from Cole Ranch which is the smallest AVA in the US, clocking in at just 189 acres. Very cool, makes this special cause there’s not much to go around. My dad’s farm is 200 acres over in Iowa. It’s a very small farm; it’s larger than this whole AVA. I’m routinely on 1000+ acre Ranches and farms in Nebraska. Not many of them are as tasty as these 189 acres. If I’m ever in the area I’m doing a tasting. Fair warning Sterling Family! Also, you need to watch this video about them, very cool family.

Nose: Word of Caution, this is allergy skewed. It’s not a powerful nose. Very subtle, does not leap up and smack you in the face. I like that. A lot of times all I can smell is the alcohol, in this I’m not hit with that at all. There’s honey and apple, which for me is always present in a Riesling. I’m getting a little limestone….actually it’s more like the reaction of Limestone and HCL that I’m getting. I love that smell. I have an elderberry bush in the backyard. Pain in the ass to maintain but it kicks Lilacs ass for fragrance and the flowers last longer, plus you can make awesome jam and pies with the elderberries (wine, not so much, though Elderberry hooch is responsible for me not remembering much of my wedding reception) Anyway, this has that smell. That honeysuckle on roids that is all elderberry. As it warms, the nose is becoming more prominent. No Petrol here, that’s surprising to me. I keep going back to it. I like it a lot.

Drinky: Ok, so I pulled this out of the fridge and let it warm up half an hour. Served right around 63 degrees. I think that was too cold, my initial reaction was, well, this doesn’t taste like much. Ten minutes in the glass though and it has flavor, which is kind of the whole point.

Very very smooth. Because the alcohol is low it just flows over the tongue with zero heat. As it warms up it gets more viscous, which is my fav thing about Riesling. There’s honey, tart apple (granny smith maybe) other stuff I can’t place. Very good, but again, not all in your face. Absolutely subdued, not as acidic as I would have thought (this will play a role later). It’s a dry Riesling and it is that. It has a residual sweetness, which Scott tells us is due to RS and Acidity being in balance (I think, I tend to forget things). It is sweet in a pleasant way, not cloying at all. There’s a lingering finish, completely pleasant. Makes you want another sip, then another, and another, then your glass is gone and you can’t drink more because you can’t be hung over for work. Damnit. I like this wine if you can’t tell.

Food I screwed this up. Online it said Riesling and any spicy food, goes well with Mexican. So I got Mexican, when my instinct said Thai. To be honest, this wouldn’t have stood up to Thai any better than it did the Mexican. This is what I had:

Basically, this is a plate of delicious fat. I could only eat half. The queso absolutely overwhelmed the wine. I gave up pretty quick on it and switched to water with the meal. This would probably be great with shellfish. It’s just too subtle to cut through the cheesey gooey Zancho goodness. Thoroughly enjoyable on its own.

I’m tired, I have half a bottle left. I’ll report more tomorrow but so far this is two thumbs up. My wife says it’s good, she hates every wine I give her. There ya go.

Edit: I take back the acid statement. After two hours in glass I finished it off and got smacked with a nice little acid bite. It just took it a bit to show up. Maybe because it's a 2010, but then, we don't generally drink whites aged now do we? Anyway, I still have half the bottle so I'll drink the rest tonight and let you know what it's like 18 hours later.

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."

wineyum

I received my first Golden Ticket today! Thank you WineWoot, I will try not to disappoint.

I will disclose- I love wine (aka wineyum) and drink my fair share, but I cannot claim any significant wine education or knowledge of any sort.

I opened this 2010 Esterlina Riesling almost as soon as I reached home at 6, so that my parents (who were babysitting my three year old) could have the first sip with me. It was slightly warmer than I would prefer, but chilled enough (I chilled it at the office).

The color is a lovely very pale yellow- about as close to clear as a wine can get. The first sniff was a surprise. The first aroma that hit all three of us was vanilla. The second sniff also revealed floral tones. This wine really smells great!

Like the aroma, the taste of this wine was also a surprise. I first noted a crisp floral note, but that was followed by a longer finish of oak, vanilla and honey. The wine has a bright, refreshing edge of a Riesling, but it also reminded me a little of a light chardonnay. Over the course of the night (it’s my rat duty to keep re-tasting every hour or so, right?), my impression remained the same. As the wine warms, the honey notes become stronger and the floral diminishes.

My DH arrived home late and thus didn’t try the wine until right before dinner, at about 8:45. He did not agree with my opinion that it had any chardonnay-like traits, so maybe I have no idea what I am talking about. You will just have to buy the wine and decide for yourself! Interestingly, he also first noted a vanilla and then floral aroma (with no knowledge of my tasting notes). He identified honey and floral as the dominant tastes and did not note any oak. He described the wine as refreshing, not too sweet, and as leaving a slight tingling on the tongue, but not in an unpleasant way.

It paired well with a light dinner of shrimp, garlic, and scallions sautéed in olive oil and served over angel hair pasta.

We thought it was a pleasant, solid Riesling that would be a great summer wine. It is very easy to drink- refreshing but smooth, and a nice finish. The bottle is now empty, so I guess that speaks for itself!

I barely managed to stay awake to post this tonight, so if people have questions, I’ll talk to y’all in the morning!

bhodilee

They've got it wrong I'm guessing in the write up. The alcohol is listed at 10% and the bottle clearly states 12.4%. If I remember my Scott Harvey Riesling class though, if the PH and the RS are within 1% of each other, the wine is "dry" because the two cancel each other out. The PH number kinda through me, cause I wasn't really getting the acid kick, maybe that's because the wine is very balanced on the whole.

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."

nanook37

I have been to Esterlina a couple of times and if you are ever in the area anyone who loves wine should give them a call and drive up the mountain to visit and taste. They do the tasting on a desk overlooking the Anderson Valley and the wine (particularly the Estate Pinot) is excellent.

I am pretty sure the RS value is incorrect. I haven't had this vintage but I have had others and the dry riesling was always quite dry - I personally preferred the off-dry while tasting without food but dry was excellent in the 3 vintages that I tried.

Plus you can share it with friends and impress them with you knowledge of the Cole Ranch AVA.

Also the Sterlings own Everett Ridge right outside of Healsburg which is also excellent and they often have a couple of the Esterlina wines and it is not as much of drive for people visiting Sonoma.

InShadows

cortot20 wrote:Edit: On the winery web site the Off-dry is listed at 2.5% RS, so this must be a typo of some kind.

What I found on the website stating 2.5% RS was for the 2009 Riesling and this is the 2010. But I agree it should state off-dry but the RS might be correct.

bhodilee wrote:It only clocks in at 12.4% so I could drink the whole thing and start a bottle of something else, but I won’t..

Can someone else verify this? The description on the woot site states 10% alcohol.

Is this a woot launch?

Looks like the woot monkeys have some splainin' to do..

CT“Every time you think something or someone is stupid, it just means there is another thing in this world you don’t understand.” - In memory of Robert, 1975-2009
If you make a man a fire, he'll be warm for a night. If you set him on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Past NoVA Gatherings

polarbear22

Sorry, I could not stay up until 1:00 to post this and get up at 5:00 for work. So here is the next in the series of labrat reports.

Taking my responsibilities seriously, I wanted to use a proper Reidel. But, I only have Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc glasses. So the first sips were to match the glass. After a quick sample, determined that the Sauvignon Blanc glass worked better than the Chardonnay glass.

The color is a pale straw. On the nose, I get green apple and what I will identify as lemon. Nice and fresh.

The taste is dry and crisp with nice fruit, mainly green apple. Great acidity. Initially, the finish was short and clean, due to the acidity. But nothing lingered. My wife said it disappeared. (Her other comments were that is very nice, and smooth.) Which made me go to the next sip that much faster.

I find this style of Reisling to my tastes. The fruit and acidity give it a nice balance, so there is a hint of sweetness without RS. And it is not so bone dry and minerally to lose its character.

While nice on its own, it paired very well with homemade fish tacos. Not a lot of sauce or fat, so the Reisling had the acidity to cut through and cleanse the palate.

After about an hour or so, and with no food, the finish stays a little longer with a pleasant tartness.

To be clear, we just stocked up on a couple of cases from the Finger Lakes, so I will not buy this time. This is a nice example of a Dry Reisling.

EDIT: The note on the back label was from E.L. Sterling. Are their relationships to other "Sterlings" we know?

polarbear22

bhodilee wrote:They've got it wrong I'm guessing in the write up. The alcohol is listed at 10% and the bottle clearly states 12.4%. If I remember my Scott Harvey Riesling class though, if the PH and the RS are within 1% of each other, the wine is "dry" because the two cancel each other out. The PH number kinda through me, cause I wasn't really getting the acid kick, maybe that's because the wine is very balanced on the whole.

It would be great if Scott has tasted this wine and can chime in. I think of him as our wine.woot resident Reisling expert.

rpm

bhodilee wrote:They've got it wrong I'm guessing in the write up. The alcohol is listed at 10% and the bottle clearly states 12.4%. If I remember my Scott Harvey Riesling class though, if the PH and the RS are within 1% of each other, the wine is "dry" because the two cancel each other out. The PH number kinda through me, cause I wasn't really getting the acid kick, maybe that's because the wine is very balanced on the whole.

We clearly need winery input here. I don't care what the pH is, 3.6% RS is well into "off dry" territory. And, there is a huge difference between 10.2 and 12.4% alcohol.

texacaliali

morning, typing before coffee so beware. not a typo, the RS figure came from the winery a few days ago - the 2010 is a brand new release - who knows, maybe they jotted down the wrong #, the winery should be on the boards any minute now.

I tasted this bottle personally, no way does it fall in the sugary sweet category, it was quite refreshing! Just might be the best Cali 2010 Riesling I've tasted thus far - we do open mounds of Riesling in our home each week...

skisterling

We actually make two different Rieslings the one on the WOOT is our Regular Riesling which we call Off-Dry and that is the apparent source of some confusion.

It is an excellent example of an Alsatian style wine. One of our previous bottlings of this wine was our first Esterlina wine featured at The White House in 2005. So this bottling is still very special to our family...

wineyum

texacaliali wrote:morning, typing before coffee so beware. not a typo, the RS figure came from the winery a few days ago - the 2010 is a brand new release - who knows, maybe they jotted down the wrong #, the winery should be on the boards any minute now.

I tasted this bottle personally, no way does it fall in the sugary sweet category, it was quite refreshing! Just might be the best Cali 2010 Riesling I've tasted thus far - we do open mounds of Riesling in our home each week...

Lab rat writing in- I concur that it is definitely not a syrupy sweet wine- I do not like sweet wines at all. This was actually not as dry as I expected, but I also did not find it sweet. I didn't comment on the dry, off-dry issue because I frankly don't drink that many Rieslings and did not feel qualified to do so, but I would not have liked the wine if it was very sweet. Bright, light and smooth would be more accurate. Like Texicaliali, my hubby's take was "refreshing" and I don't disagree with that.

texacaliali

take a few minutes to read this article written by Jon Bonne of the San Francisco Chronicle a few years back about Cole Ranch, makes me want to shut off the computer and jump in the car heading north today. Sigh (WD keeps me waaaay to busy on Fridays!)

this is hard to format all the info for the blog but left to right column headings match up with the info in the line below interms of the correct number for the 2010 Riesling on Woot today... thanks for the interest and conversation, fyi.. Riesling is the #1 recommended white wine by sommeliers internationally according to the Sommelier Journal

wineyum

this is hard to format all the info for the blog but left to right column headings match up with the info in the line below interms of the correct number for the 2010 Riesling on Woot today... thanks for the interest and conversation, fyi.. Riesling is the #1 recommended white wine by sommeliers internationally according to the Sommelier Journal

What's strange about that is that the bottle I received is labelled as dry?

rpm

this is hard to format all the info for the blog but left to right column headings match up with the info in the line below interms of the correct number for the 2010 Riesling on Woot today... thanks for the interest and conversation, fyi.. Riesling is the #1 recommended white wine by sommeliers internationally according to the Sommelier Journal

Thank you for your input. Riesling is much more popular abroad than it is in the United States - the primary reason being that historically, so much of the Riesling produced in California lacked sufficient acid to balance the natural sugars when fermented off dry and often even when fermented dry. The result was a whole lot of very mediocre (to be charitable) sweetish Riesling (often blended with lesser grapes) that wasn't even as good as the mediocre Chenin Blanc and Chardonnay that ultimately replaced it.

There was always a little good Riesling, but not much - mostly in Napa, some in the Mayacamas mountains (Stony Hill), some here and there in the Russian River Valley back in the day.

Few remember that Riesling was considered California's finest white wine before Prohibition, when there was almost no Chardonnay in the state at all.

We are fortunate that people have discovered Mendocino County's climate is very well suited to growing Riesling, and some fine ones now come out of there, especially the Anderson Valley.

There is nothing quite like a first class dry Riesling with California's legendary Dungeness crab!

skisterling

rpm wrote:Thank you for your input. Riesling is much more popular abroad than it is in the United States - the primary reason being that historically, so much of the Riesling produced in California lacked sufficient acid to balance the natural sugars when fermented off dry and often even when fermented dry. The result was a whole lot of very mediocre (to be charitable) sweetish Riesling (often blended with lesser grapes) that wasn't even as good as the mediocre Chenin Blanc and Chardonnay that ultimately replaced it.

There was always a little good Riesling, but not much - mostly in Napa, some in the Mayacamas mountains (Stony Hill), some here and there in the Russian River Valley back in the day.

Few remember that Riesling was considered California's finest white wine before Prohibition, when there was almost no Chardonnay in the state at all.

That's a great pairing!

We are fortunate that people have discovered Mendocino County's climate is very well suited to growing Riesling, and some fine ones now come out of there, especially the Anderson Valley.

There is nothing quite like a first class dry Riesling with California's legendary Dungeness crab!

polarbear22

Unlike wineyum, you did not list any of the typical Riesling floral aromas/flavors - the sort of flavors that I find sets apart a Riesling from other varietals.

Do you think you did not taste/smell any, or do you drink enough Rieslings that you just assume they are there and not report on them?

Thanks for the review.

Good point. I did get the floral, but did not identify them further, so failed to make any note of them. I did not pick up on the honey that both wineyum and bhodilee commented on. Just not a note that stuck out for me.

I should have looked to see what is typical in a Reisling for comparison -- there or not.

I know I will never be a professional taster, I only have the first half of rpm's advice down. I'll keep at it, but not good at taste memory, which makes it hard to describe what I taste.

skisterling

As Jon Bonne of the SF Chronicle points out it is the US Monopole, (that is the question on the Sommelier exam). There is a famous monopole in France and Cole Ranch is the US counterpart..a very unique micro-climate

texacaliali

rpm wrote:Thank you for your input. Riesling is much more popular abroad than it is in the United States - the primary reason being that historically, so much of the Riesling produced in California lacked sufficient acid to balance the natural sugars when fermented off dry and often even when fermented dry. The result was a whole lot of very mediocre (to be charitable) sweetish Riesling (often blended with lesser grapes) that wasn't even as good as the mediocre Chenin Blanc and Chardonnay that ultimately replaced it.

There was always a little good Riesling, but not much - mostly in Napa, some in the Mayacamas mountains (Stony Hill), some here and there in the Russian River Valley back in the day.

Few remember that Riesling was considered California's finest white wine before Prohibition, when there was almost no Chardonnay in the state at all.

We are fortunate that people have discovered Mendocino County's climate is very well suited to growing Riesling, and some fine ones now come out of there, especially the Anderson Valley.

There is nothing quite like a first class dry Riesling with California's legendary Dungeness crab!

I tasted Stony Hill recently with high-hopes and was left very disappointed. Very "flat" in taste. I tend to stick with the Mendocino Rieslings when not sipping Alsatian or German bottles...

rpm

texacaliali wrote:I tasted Stony Hill recently with high-hopes and was left very disappointed. Very "flat" in taste. I tend to stick with the Mendocino Rieslings when not sipping Alsatian or German bottles...

Ohh yeah, Dungeness Crab season is around the corner!

I'm thinking of Stony Hill as it was 30 years ago and more - Fred McCrea was one of the very great figures of the revitalization of California white wine. His Riesling is less famous than his Chardonnay, but it was a very fine wine as well. I've had bottles last 20 years and still be worth drinking.

bhodilee

Sorry, I could not stay up until 1:00 to post this and get up at 5:00 for work. So here is the next in the series of labrat reports.

Taking my responsibilities seriously, I wanted to use a proper Reidel. But, I only have Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc glasses. So the first sips were to match the glass. After a quick sample, determined that the Sauvignon Blanc glass worked better than the Chardonnay glass.

The color is a pale straw. On the nose, I get green apple and what I will identify as lemon. Nice and fresh.

The taste is dry and crisp with nice fruit, mainly green apple. Great acidity. Initially, the finish was short and clean, due to the acidity. But nothing lingered. My wife said it disappeared. (Her other comments were that is very nice, and smooth.) Which made me go to the next sip that much faster.

I find this style of Reisling to my tastes. The fruit and acidity give it a nice balance, so there is a hint of sweetness without RS. And it is not so bone dry and minerally to lose its character.

While nice on its own, it paired very well with homemade fish tacos. Not a lot of sauce or fat, so the Reisling had the acidity to cut through and cleanse the palate.

After about an hour or so, and with no food, the finish stays a little longer with a pleasant tartness.

To be clear, we just stocked up on a couple of cases from the Finger Lakes, so I will not buy this time. This is a nice example of a Dry Reisling.

EDIT: The note on the back label was from E.L. Sterling. Are their relationships to other "Sterlings" we know?

Figures, I TRIED to order fish taco's but they were out. Sad face. And I apparently wouldn't know acid if I was bathed in it and became the Joker.

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."

bhodilee

I think he's saying he didn't expect much out of me ;) Or for me to go off on some tangent that had nothing to do with anything. This wine was way to good to be cynical though. I will think long and hard about destroying my DIWBM on this. Perhaps the wife would relent as she really liked it and that has NEVER happened.

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."

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